Jamon Alex Halvaksz

Becoming 'local tourists': travel, landscapes and identity in Papua New Guinea.

This article questions the distinctiveness of hosts and guests, and blurs the boundaries between a commitment to established relationships and an emergent modern tourist identity among Biangai travelers in Papua New Guinea. As a result of colonial pacification, the Biangai increasingly experience the nation as travelers, while at the same time welcoming gold miners, researchers and eco-tourists to their mid-montane forests and wildlife management areas. When they travel, young men often stylize themselves as ‘local tourist’. Here, I examine what appear to be two ‘traditional’ trips -one for a redistributive feast, and another for a marriage ceremony -where expectations of commensurability, exchange, friendships, and some sort of shared space are not met. As travelers and tourists, the Biangai reveal a different gaze from those commonly associated with international tourists.

The Taste of Public Places: Terroir in Papua New Guinea's Emerging Nation

This paper considers the relationship between persons, land and food as seen in the sociality of public gatherings and gardening spaces. For Biangai speakers in the Upper Bulolo Valley of Morobe Province (Papua New Guinea), intimacies of place are often read through the work of tending to the land, the symbolic association of crops and people as well as rituals where male and female persons are made. By examining the intersection of taste and place in a public multi-language gathering, the paper offers a critical assessment of the French concept of le goût du terroir, or the taste of place, suggesting that tastes matter substantially in defining intergroup sociality. The paper reveals the significance of terroir for organising and strengthening group identity in Papua New Guinea, and its problematic extension to ideas of national foodviews. Ultimately, it is argued that such grounding informs how Biangai imagine the nation and its public places.

Photographing Spirits: Biangai Photography, Ancestors, and the Environment in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea

In this article, I examine the intertwined meaning of photographs as image, object, and expression of the relationship created between photographer and subject among the Biangai, a people of Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. These relations are highlighted through the method of indigenous photography, in which photographic authority is relinquished and the resulting images are discussed. It is argued that the camera becomes the lens through which the past interrogates the present, and the photograph as object and image circulates in networks for which these ancestral persons remain powerful and emotive.

From modern production to imagined primitive: The social world of coffee from Papua New Guinea

of Catch-22. However, perhaps Latin American magical realism would have been a more fitting lens through which to explore the political and social situations described in this book, as it would have provided a more ‘Cuban-specific’ view of imagery and metaphors. This, however, does not diminish the value of the contributions made by Frederik not just to an anthropological understanding of political life in Cuba but also to a literary perspective of theatre and art in a socialist revolution.

Two New Films from New Ireland

The two films, Stori Tumbuna: Ancestors’ Tales and Rubber’s Kastom, represent a unique set of collaborative projects that combine indigenous storytelling with Western ethnographic filmmaking. Both were filmed in the Lak region along the southern tip of New Ireland Province of Papua New Guinea by Paul Wolffram. Together they provide a depth of understanding of Lak worldview and ritual practices. But they also offer unique portrayals which stand alone as important creative works. The DVD, Rubber’s Kastom, packages a rich collection of ethnographic footage organized into two full ethnographic films (the title film, Rubber’s Kastom, and A Terrible Beauty) and two shorter pieces (Visual Metaphor and Sonic Reason and I’ll Complete Myself). The title film, Rubber’s Kastom, is a well-executed portrayal of the Lak mortuary ritual sequence. The Melanesian pidgin word kastom simply translates as ‘‘custom,’’ but is often used to describe ritual knowledge. In this case, it is ritual knowledge that is held and enacted by Melanesian big men or political leaders. Like the other films, it follows Daniel ‘‘Rubber’’ Toanari’s efforts to conduct his own mortuary feast, effectively preventing anyone else from claiming the right to do it for him. The ability to perform these rites for the deceased is one of the ways that Lak leaders claim power and authority within their communities. By performing his own rites before his death, Rubber thus ends his career as the expert in ritual leadership. The film is narrated by a Lak man in Tok Pisin (the lingua franca of Papua New Guinea) with English subtitles, and focuses on simply describing events with little ethnographic interpretation. I’ll Complete Myself is a shorter version of the film, with no narration besides a short interview with Rubber. Both films offer audiences visual imagery which might be read against literature on the region, allowing students to formulate their own interpretations of events. But Rubber’s Kastom is also significant as a collaborative project, offering a film that can be of use locally. While many ethnographic films are clearly directed at a non-local audience, layering interpretation and explanation over a story, here the Visual Anthropology, 25: 452–454, 2012 Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0894-9468 print=1545-5920 online DOI: 10.1080/08949468.2012.718242